It identifies and explains the essential layers of a modern AI engineering toolkit for 2026, covering orchestration frameworks, universal connectors, local inference engines, and evaluation tools. The article provides specific tool recommendations like LangGraph, Model Context Protocol (MCP), Ollama, and Promptfoo.
Consult this guide when planning the architecture for a new generative AI application, transitioning a prototype into production, or modernizing an existing AI stack. It is particularly valuable when you need to decide on orchestration paradigms, local testing setups, or evaluation frameworks.